Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3234 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-09-17
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 106 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review

A gripping, harrowing true-life story told with real skill, Touching The Void is one of the finest documentaries of recent years. It mixes in recreations of real life events with interviews, building up a head of tension that makes it hard to turn your eyes away from.

The story itself centres on two British mountain climbers by the name of Joe Simpson and Simon Yates. They head off to the Andes to climb Siula Grande, yet some way into the expedition, Joe Simpson falls and breaks his leg. At this stage he’s still attached to the support rope of Simon Yates, who struggles to bear his weight, and faces an impossible choice between continuing to hang on and face certain death, or cutting the rope and sending his friend plummeting down the side of the mountain.

Not only is this an extraordinary story, but it’s one that Touching The Void tells exceptionally well, with a focus and skill that rightly attracted the interest of award-givers. That those involved in the real-life adventure are telling you the story adds a real weight to the film, and director Kevin Macdonald--he who was behind the Oscar-winning One Day In September--weaves it all together quite brilliantly.

An unforgettable piece of cinema for many reasons, Touching The Void is an extraordinary telling of an extraordinary tale, and one that simply demands to be seen. Do make sure you see it. --Simon Brew

DVD Description

In Touching the Void, director Kevin McDonald ("One Day in September") tells Joe Simpson's compelling story by combining talking-head interviews with Simpson and Yates, and stunningly photographed narrative footage, in which Simpson and Yates' ordeal is actually re-enacted on the Peruvian Siula Grande. McDonald's footage is both engrossing and eye-popping; it could easily stand alone as its own one-of-a-kind adventure film. The interviews, however, add depth to the film and make Touching The Void a unique, thrilling, and emotional piece of cinema.

Synopsis

Bringing to life Joe Simpson's book of the same name, Touching The Void details the near-death experience he endured during a 1985 attempt to climb the only mountain in the Peruvian Andes that had not been scaled--the 21,000-foot Siula Grande. With his partner Simon Yates, Simpson successfully reached the peak after a three-day climb. During the descent, however, he fell and shattered several bones in his right leg. Yates attempted to lower Simpson down the mountain 300 feet at a time, but the process was slow and painful for both men. With no food or water they were both sure to die, which left Yates with a painful choice to make--cutting Simpson loose to ensure at least his own survival. And this was only the beginning of Simpson's mind-boggling odyssey...

Customer Reviews

Gobsmackingly good!
I reluctantly went to see this with a friend of mine,expecting to be bored out of my mind. After all a documentary about climbing isn't exactly my usual idea of fun. However, I was absolutely blown away. I remember coming out of the cinema and actually being speechless. This was a true story which is absolutely unbelievable. The beauty of this is that the real people are narrating the story, not actors. This is a really inspirational film for anyone, not just climbers. It really expresses the human instinct to stay alive and to not be alone. It makes you realise how through sheer willpower and determination human beings are capable of very extraordinary things. an awesome film!

A fascinating tale of survival in the face of impossible hardship
Barcode: 6867449009599

This film paints an intruiging picture. I'd call it a documentary as largely, it focuses around Joe and Simon's narration - yet at the same time we have the reconstructions to serve as a stunning visual backdrop and reall hammer the message of their story home. This film is a rollercoaster ride of emotions, from the initial sense of triumph and youthful ambition as they set out on the expedition up Peruvian mountain Siula Grande and reach the summit to the sense of upmost horror as things start to go wrong.

What makes it all the more poignant to the viewer is that Joe and Simon come across as such the everymen - they are normal men with ambitions just the same as any of us and their charisma at conveying their story and the skill at which the reconstructions are shot really puts us in their place. And of course, as the tale progresses we realise just how courageous they are, having never expected really expected things to go quite so horrendously wrong, the terror is palpable and i can only marvel at how they kept going through it all - the cold, the altitude, the sheer enormity of it all is terrifying.

That is in essence the heart of Touching The Void, the tale of two ordinary men from Britain who prevailed against all odds to emerge as mountaineering legends. A brilliant film that holds appeal for anyone, this version also comes with an insightful behind the scenes documentary which shows as the two travelled back to the site for the first time in 20 years, that there is still a great deal of mixed emotions associated with the event.

A all-round ace film - check it out!

So simple, yet says so much
The description of this film might make it sound like a nicely shot adventure documentary, but it is much more than that. It's about suffering, companionship (and its limits), and the loneliness of the human condition. If that sounds too grand a claim, check out the look on Joe Simpson's face as he says, "I lost something".

The cinematography is magnificent, the ingenious camerawork used to convey Simpson's increasingly tenuous grip on reality being particularly effective. The pacing of the story is superb, the climbers shown sliding slowly into disaster, and Simpson experiencing his dark night of the soul before, little by little, flashes of hope start to appear, though punctuated until the last moment by the resurgence of despair.

The narration by the three participants is particularly moving for being so honest and understated. Joe Simpson's haunted look throughout, and the gaping pauses in his sentences as he recalls his worst moments, are deeply affecting. Unless he is an incredibly good actor, one can truly believe that his awful experience marked his transition from hard-nosed, arrogant youth to suffering member of the human race.